


In Bloom

by deadfoxforcutie



Category: Futurama
Genre: IT'S GAY, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-14 23:29:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7195619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadfoxforcutie/pseuds/deadfoxforcutie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Flower Shop AU Prompt:<br/>Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Bloom

Fry walked down the street, making his way from his apartment to the flower shop he worked at. It was far enough to take some time to get there, but not far enough to justify using the tube. Besides, he liked the time it gave him to think, to just look at the city. It was a funny feeling, walking the same streets he’d been walking since he was a kid and feeling foreign in them. It was the same city, same layout, only with a thousand years in-between the one he grew up in and the one he lived in now.

He thought about his first day in the future. That government case worker, Leela, told him his new permanent career assignment was to be a florist. At first he laughed, “A florist? Your machine must be off. No way a macho guy like me could be a florist.” he said.

Leela informed him that, no, the machine wasn’t mistaken. Several personality tests had been ran on him that determined Floristry was the career he would gain the most enjoyment, success, and productivity out of. And besides, she said, it’s mandatory.

So he shrugged it off, figuring that it was a weird career, sure, but it wasn’t like the end of the world. And at least he hadn’t been assigned to be a delivery boy or something.

At last, he had arrived at the flower shop. He opened it up with his store keys, took off his red jacket and stashed it behind the counter, and tied on his green apron. He went about setting up the display of bouquets for that day on the sidewalk, and flipped the “Sorry, We’re Closed” sign on the door to “Open”.

He had the store to himself until noon, and the rush didn’t start until a little bit after then, if it started at all, so he brewed himself a cup of coffee in the back room and sat down behind the counter. He’d start working through the orders in a while, but for now he just wanted to enjoy his morning. That is until a customer slammed the door open, sending the bells hanging above the door into a frenzy of sound.

Fry lurched backwards in his chair at the violent entrance, coffee sloshing out of his cup as he corrected his angle in the chair. He quickly rose, a little embarrassed at reacting so clumsily, and greeted the customer.

The customer, a steel grey robot, stomped over to Fry and slammed a stack of bills and loose change onto the counter. His simulated eyes had an angry scowl across them.

“I need the meanest flowers you got,” he said, “I’m talking about a real ‘fuck you’ in flowers.”

“Is that a custom order then?”

“Yes, obviously!” the robot snapped back, “Listen, I’m not mad. Well, I am mad. Girl I’ve been dating, this hoity-toity robot from nobility“—at this, he spoke with a flourish and performed a little curtsy—“decided I’m not good enough to go to the ball with her, says we’re through. Me, Bender, greatest robot of all time, not good enough for some lame gala. Well, I’ll show her who’s through with who. The look on her face when her butler says I sent her flowers, expecting some bouquet asking for a second chance. But then BAM, the flowers say ‘FUCK YOU, MADAM’.”

“Oh,” Fry replied, “you mean you wanna write a note that says ‘fuck you, madam’ on it?”

“No, I want you to assemble a bouquet that says ‘fuck you, madam’ in the flower language all you florists and old wealth apparently know how to speak.”

“Oooooohhh, I get you. It’s not an actual language though. The flowers just sorta mean stuff. So it won’t say ‘fuck you, madam’ word for word, but she’ll get the message.”

“Ok, do that then.”

“Do you have any ideas for flowers you want?”

“No, you’re the flower artist.”

“Alright,” Fry ducked down under the counter and emerged again with a pen and some paperwork, “just go ahead and fill this out and your order will be ready tomorrow morning.”

“I need these done now! I’ll even pay extra!”

Fry was looking forward to sitting down for another hour, but he supposed starting an order early wouldn’t hurt. Plus, the robot was pretty entertaining.

“So, uh,” Fry left the counter and started assembling the flowers he needed from around the store, “you been seeing this girl a long time?”  
The robot folded his arms and impatiently tapped his foot cuff.

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, “we met on a cruise I went on a while back. She was great at first but, well you know.”

Fry was too far in the back of the store to hear what Bender had said.  
Bender slowly meandered back towards him.   “How’s the bouquet coming along? I don’t have all day.”

Fry was too deep in thought to reply, now fully focused on the art of flower arrangement. He snipped little tufts of orange and red flowers off of their hydroponic shelves, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. Bender thought it was cute, the way humans got when they did things. You could see their brains working underneath all that weird flesh. He thought this one especially made some interesting faces. He was just about to start having those thoughts again before he snapped himself out of it.

“Hey, listen meatbag, I have a schedule to keep here. What’s the holdup?”  
Fry had the flowers all wrapped up in crinkly plastic, and did some slight minor variations before handing them to the robot.

“Here you go,” he said, “I wrote ‘fuck you, madam’ on the note too, just in case.”  
Fry printed off the receipt and the robot swiped his card through the register.

“Hey, listen,” Fry said as he leaned down over the receipt, quickly scribbling a little note on it with his pen, “I’m sorta starting fresh here in New New York and, well…”  
He trailed off, blushing a little.

“And….?” Bender asked.  
Fry slipped the bouquet and the receipt with his note on it into a brown paper bag.

“And I would like to go on a date with you. If you’re interested. Since you’re single.”

Bender went into panic mode, stammered something about not being robophobic, snatched his bag and clumsily backed out of the store.  
Fry slumped back into his chair behind the counter, feeling foolish.

 

Later that night, as Bender was about to drop the ‘fuck you’ flowers on the front steps of his ex’s mansion, he noticed the note on the receipt he had managed to force himself to forget about. “Call me ;)” it said, with a phone number next to it. He dropped the flowers on the stoop, rang the doorbell and ran. And as he ran, he thought that yes, maybe he would give the redheaded Florist a call.


End file.
